The present invention relates generally to translating phrases from a first language to a second language. In particular, the present invention relates to a computer-implemented tool for translating a phrase from a first language to a second language.
With the World Wide Web (the xe2x80x9cwebxe2x80x9d), companies can easily provide and market their products to consumers all over the world. A company will typically provide its content (such as product names and descriptions) in various languages, as desired by a web consumer. For example, if a product line (which is already released in the United States) was going to be released in Germany, German descriptions of the various products in the line would be made available over the web for German-speaking consumers. With current schemes, the English versions of the descriptions would be provided to a human translator for translation into German. Unfortunately, this can consume excessive resources and time.
Accordingly, what is needed is an improved scheme for translating phrases from a first language to a second language.
The present invention is directed to a computer having a translation program. In one embodiment, a computer executes the translation program for translating a phrase from a first language to a second language. Initially, the executing program receives the phrase to be translated. It then identifies in the phrase a translatable portion thereof. Next, it locates from a hierarchally-ordered expanded list of translation pairs, which each have equivalent first-language and second-language chunks, a pair having a first-language chunk that most closely matches the translatable portion with at least a part of the translatable portion being identical to the located first-language chunk. Finally, the executing program replaces the at least a part of the translatable portion with the second-language chunk from the located translation pair. In this way, the executing program at least partially (if not completely) automatically translates the input phrase from the first language to the second language.